MAJOR PHASES COMPLETED

FINALLY...
Pretty much done in the upper level.  The Living Area turned out much better than I had hoped.  The color (Cloudburst) you can see around the window, wall to the right, and doors is a bit of serendipity and seeks to import the clouded sky often present hereabouts.

I suppose this continues the theme of bringing into the house the colors of the environment. I my case, the basic colors used elsewhere, like Torch Light, Grass Cloth, and Crushed Orange, are somewhat 'loud' and used partly to remind me of colors found in Australia

It will be a while before I tackle minor improvements in the kitchen area.  I have since reversed the way the doors on the 'Fridge open and this makes things a lot easier as I now do not need to walk around the doors in order to get at the contents.  Here the philosophy is, "If it works, don't fix it.".  In the Fall, I will clean up this space and replace the present linoleum with linoleum tiles.  It will take a while to feel my way into just what to do.

It is hard to realize that this space was once two rooms!

My friend Blaine, from whom I purchased the road bike you can see in now over to the right in the regular content, gave me two prints of scenes from Central Australia he purchased when in Alice Springs (one of the Olgas, and the other of Uluru, otherwise know as 'Ayers Rock').  These are now framed; one is hung in the bedroom and the other in this area such that, coming up from the stairs into the passageway,  you can see one to the left and the other to the right.  This reminds me that, standing at the top of Uluru, one can see the Olgas some 30 miles away.  You can just see the Uluru print hung in the living room.  I am especially fond of these prints as, in my flying days, I made the trip to the Centre several times with various groups of friends.  I will write of flying adventures in the companion blog.

Since completing this work, I have turned more to the garden and am beginning to wonder just where to plant trees.  I have six blueberry bushes growing well,  a couple of trees awaiting re-planting, and a bunch of plants in the front of the house that will be moved in the Fall. I have also constructed the first raised garden bed.  Putting up an outside clothes line has completed the 'a la maison' feeling.  It is great have the washing out, fluttering in the breeze and drying in an hour or so.  The air is too humid during Summer for clothes to dry quickly indoors.  Of course, this enhances the energy efficiency of #74 Sterling Street.

The challenge now is to populate the interior with suitable furniture.  I have made up a list of what to buy and what to build.  Apart from my own needs in the upper area, I need to make the lower level able to receive house guests.

The deck needs treating with preservative and there is a lot of fixing, tidying, and cleaning beckoning me, not to forget that the exterior will have to be painted before Winter.  And so it goes, on and on!  Posting-wise, this will become even more sporadic as I work to recover parts of my life that got submerged in the overwhelming press of demolition and rebuilding.  I will work on some slideshows that will give you an overview of what has been accomplished.

So...Watch this space!

UNDER-DECK ROOM: FINISHED!!!

HERE WE ARE; THE END OF MAY AND...

The Sun-room/Potting-room is complete.  Both tiling and trim have been done, so have a look.  The room has turned out very well, far better than I had hoped and a far cry from the simple lower rear entrance into the laundry than I had originally envisaged.  The first picture looks to the South West while the second looks more to the East.  The orange trim panels were cunningly done but I will spare you the details.


I suppose that, one day, I will really hang out the washing on an outdoor clothes line.  Being just myself, I do several small washes a week and these dry well enough on an indoor clothes horse.  I use the dryer to remove wrinkles and soften the fabric.  This has worked well all through the Winter and Spring. However, the warmer air is also more moist so I may yet have the clothes flapping in the breeze outside.  All of which accords with my intention to minimize energy consumption.

I love the convenience of the lower entry as well as two entries from off the deck.  Sometimes I wonder, 'What is the shortest way out?' but I am getting used to it.  This room is very efficient  thermally speaking and is always cooler than the ambient air by day and warmer at night.  As you can see, I am well pleased with it all.


Even though I have turned on the heat in the floor only once experimentally, I can see that this will make for a great room in the Winter.  Of course it will also function as a mudroom in the wetter months and forms an airlock prior to entering the laundry/work room area.  Then the colors in the walls and tiles will make it a cheerful place indeed.

 I know you will like the tiles so I am adding a picture that will do the floor justice.  As you may have worked out for yourself, this picture was taken prior to the final trim.

In order to complete the floor trim in the bedroom, I have painted and trimmed out the shore passageway connecting this room with the general living area.  After entering the front door, one goes up a shore flight of stairs to this passageway and directly into the living area.

 Today I began painting the ceiling in this room so the next posting will be about that work.  Anyway, here is the pic of the tile job.  I hope you like it.  I got lots of cheap fawn (desert like) tiles at sale and my friend Uma gave me some  red and green tiles from her store renovation.  The problem was to find a pattern that would accommodate these 18  into the 100 lighter colored tiles.  Eventually I started  in the centre, beginning with a fawn tile and proceeding outwards in a roughly helical manner.  Every odd numbered space was for an Uma-tile; if a prime number, a red tile, otherwise a green tile.  It has a sort-of-random effect and most have found it quite pleasing.

Meanwhile, for the next week, the order of the day is painting the living area.  Although the cooking area occupies one corner, I will leave this to the last.  Until the next posting!

THE UNDER-DECK ROOM: GETTING THERE

THINGS HAVE MOVED ALONG SOMEWHAT, these last two weeks.

I have finished off the dry-wall and ceiling, work that was well along last posting.  The dry wall is now properly painted, primer-sealer and final coat.  The ceiling is a little off-white (Beach Sand), the same color as will be the wood trim around the doors and the windows.  The walls are the same color as in the upper bedroom on the western walls (Grass Cloth).  I am very pleased with the overall congruence and I hope you will be also.  The brown panel is one of my spare doors; placed on a couple of saw benches, it made an excellent work surface for the dry-wall work.

Now the problem is what color to finish off the foundation walls.  These are cinder block (Besser block, if you are in Australia).  Here in the US, a foundation wall sits on the footing and is usually the walling for the basement.  Basements are ubiquitous here in the North-East, and very common elsewhere.  They are mandatory in NY to ensure the footings are below the frost line, set at 48 inches below the grade (topsoil). As my house has no basement the lower level is half-buried by a berm to ensure this.  To keep to the theme of having earthy colors within the house, I had thought to paint these some shade of red (Frank Lloyd Wright would be so pleased with this!).  However, I have decided to wait until the tiling is complete so as to gauge the overall congruence.  Tiling will be underway this week.

With the drywall work is completed, I decided to have a look at the thermostat, thinking that it could not be 'rocket science' to hook up.  Just two wires, one red the other white and look...on the back of the unit that had been up in the kitchen area, these wires were still attached.  So the thermostat was a 'no brainer', as we say.  Outside, the ambient temperature was 39 deg. F.  In the potting room it was 52 degrees (not bad, so far as heat gain goes, given an over-clouded day and rain beginning to fall).  With 60 degrees F selected, it took just over an hour to get to this goal.  Very pleasing indeed and how nice to feel the floor warming as I planned the tile work, laying out tiles on the floor to check the pattern and proper placement.  The concrete floor holds quite a deal of heat, not to mention the water in the radiant heat looping buried within it and two hours after turning off the heat, the room has lost only two degrees.  I had been dreading that this might turn out to be a expensive mistake but all is well!

In my idle moments I have continued preparing for the lawn repair, carting soil about in my new wheel barrow, filling holes made by the earth moving plant tracks, leveling out boggy ground, and raking soil to and fro.  By very great luck I had all this work completed just yesterday so that today's rains, which bid to continue for a day or so more, have arrived just as I would like (did make use of the ten day forecast, I confess).  When this has passed along later in the week I am hoping for warmer weather to do the seeding, finally making use of the seed and the bale of straw still in the trunk of my car.

Other good news is that my 10 baby  trees arrived from the Arbor Day Foundation and have been tucked away in a sheltered area in the lee of my neighbor's wooden fence.  I am hoping for word of my half-dozen blueberry bushes ordered three weeks back.

So there you have it.  Tiling the next few days and some depiction of further progress in a week or two.  There will still be some work on trim around the windows but this will involve setting up for preparing and rabbeting the required stock.  I will be using two by fours from the earlier demolition as my source.  This work will enable me to complete the trim for the floating floor in the upper bedroom.

Of course, with the weather warming, there is the deck to be treated.  Does work ever end?

"THE HOUSE" UPDATE

IT HAS BEEN SOMEWHAT OF A SLOG, seemingly work, work, and more work, these last few months.  The main focus has been fitting out the remodeled bedroom.  After much consultation,  Torchlight became the main color, assisted by Grass Mat on the remaining wall, extending into the closets.  Then I cleared everything out to lay the floating floor, a simpatico Tacoma Oak.  This left the trim, finally selecting Crushed Orange.  To several visitors, this was a little startling and one commented, "Robert, you do have to sleep in this room?"  I have moved in, so far as sleeping is concerned and here is a picture of the bedroom end. 

From the outset, I wanted to bring the colors of the outside world into this room, as well as the sense of sunlight.  If you have been to Australia, you will know that there is a lot of red shades there, especially the red earth, so it also reminds me of my original home land.  It turns out that, for me anyway, this is a wonderful room to go to sleep in and especially in which to awake.  The morning sun shines through the eastern windows, steadily filling the room with golden light.  Later, the French doors take over admitting the light, so there are subtle shifts in color all through the day.

So far the house has managed to import heat quite well.  On a day when the temperature is in the mid 40s (F), the furnace rarely starts up.  Later, before next Winter, I will have to pay attention to nocturnal heat loss.  As you may divine from the photo, I run baseboard hot water heaters but revised the furnace somewhat (more of that another time).

With the promise of an early Spring, I ramped up work on the potting (come sun) room putting in insulation in walls, where possible (there is a lot of glass) and ceiling space, then putting up dry wall for the ceiling and on walls.  Today, this Easter Monday, I managed to complete all this work and have now to do the taping and plaster work, which I have just begun.  There were some tricky bits here and there but I am very pleased with my work so far.  What will remain are painting walls and ceiling, fitting the two dome lights to the ceiling, and then tiling the floor.  Somewhere along the way, we will turn on and test the radiant heat loop in the floor (when Ray,the heater man, returns from Florida).  This is a separate zone with a thermostat in the potting room. However, with the insulation and dry-walling, the room is importing heat quite well, running at about 15 degrees (F) above the outside temperature this afternoon.  Again, with all that fenestration, nocturnal heat loss will be a challenge.  Another picture for you, above.


As the weather warms and the days lengthen, the garden calls so my time outside is increasing.  I am preparing the ground ruined by the earth-movers (digging the hole for the potting room) for reseeding. I am pursuing the principles of permaculture (check Wikipedia) and plan for lots of trees, shrubs, and the like.  I have plenty of room!  My first ten trees are on the way from Arbor Day Foundation (their 'Wild bird" mix). I have ordered six blueberry bushes locally, and plan dwarf fruit trees as well.  Again, more on this later.

An underlying theme is a focus on systems: the house as part of the surrounding environment; using a natural approach to manage transfer of heat into and out of the house, according to the season; myself as part of this house/environment system; and the role of my abode to ensure a productive life, with good input into my well-being in this, my last quarter century (75 years next month).  I purchased the house on my birthday last year (May 29) and moved in on June 1st.  So far an amazing experience and lots of work.  I dips my lid to my contractor, Daniel, who has been such an excellent partner in following my dream.  I plan some sideshows for Photo Bucket so you can follow each aspect of the work in more detail.  Keep watching this space!

ONE MONTH INTO WINTER...NOW WHAT COLORS?

BACK IN CORNING NOW FOUR WEEKS...what progress on the house can I report?

The first task, in order of importance and urgency, was to stop the leakage of cold air into the house. The air pressure inside a house is usually lower that that outside, due to air flowing over the roof. The cold outside air then enters the house, forcing the hot air out. Heating costs money, especially when the temperatures are below freezing, as they are many days here in Corning. Number one target was the make the manhole airtight. Next, plastic sheeting to be attached to the inside frame of each window. Even though the windows are double glazed, air nevertheless leaks past the framing. After that, a matter of tracking down all the leaks from the outside. I still have a few to discover but the number times the furnace comes on and for how long has dropped considerably. I am looking forward to next month's gas bill to see what progress I have made.

I suppose, were I truly dedicated, I would read the gas meter each day, but this is outside (unlike the water and power meters). With the temperatures below freezing and lots of biting cold wind and four or so inches of snow every so often, I confess to 'wimping out' on this routine.

In the longer term, I plan to make indoor insulated shutters for each of the 15 or so windows to prevent the re-radiation of heat at night. Before that I have to set up my workshop in the laundry room. This is in progress and I have used a spare door as the starting point for a woodworking bench, gradually acquiring tools according to the jobs in hand. Serious work on this will begin with the arrival of a front vise for the work bench next week.

In the meantime I have plodded away at making good the repairs to the drywall (walls and ceilings) in the two rooms formed from four in the upper level. This has involved a deal of plastering to ensure seamless joins where the separating walls once were. 'A little often' is the rule with plastering repairs, with sanding down between coats. Not so bad with the walls but working on the ceilings has been somewhat 'yuck' and tedious, up and down the ladder and getting covered with plaster dust. This has been completed in what will become my bedroom and study space. This week, I painted the ceiling (13 feet by 26 feet) and applied a sealing coat to the walls at the joins. One can hardly tell where the joins were made. I am really pleased with the result...the hard work was worth it!

Now, how to paint the walls. Three walls (North, East, and South) will be some shade of orange, I have narrowed the search down to three choices and painted swatches on the walls. I will live with these colors for several days to assist the final choice. I have only rudimentary ideas about colors so have enlisted the aid of some women acquaintances. Thanks to them for excellent advice, stopping me from rushing in like the fool I am. The picture will give you some idea of progress. These three walls will painted toward the end of this week, taking me into February. This leaves the western wall and I think it will have some greenish hue; waiting to experience the effect of the first color on the room.

Down the track, once the painting is done, awaits the re-flooring. Feels like it is rushing up on me now that the painting is under way. One way or another, I am keeping out of mischief.

BACK IN CORNING AND...SNOW!

ELEVEN WEEKS ABSENT, I am back in my little house. Daniel has done quite a bit of work; strengthening the roofing timbers above the breakfast area, preparatory to removing what was left of the dividing (load-bearing) wall, and repairing all but a little of the dry-walling in this area and the bedroom. You may recall that I had removed all the dry-wall from off this partition. So now a commodious space reaches from the twin French doors to the South, opening onto the deck, to the large window looking northwards onto the front garden and the street.

I am writing this post in this new space and attest that it makes a huge, almost unimaginable, difference to the experience of the house. I begin to hear the house whispering to me about the possibilities around a minor kitchen area remodel and how to populate the eating area while preserving the sense of spaciousness.

The revised heating system is working well and easily maintains the interior at 65 deg. F in either level as required. I discovered that my less than completely efficient furnace (84% vs. 95%) heats the utility room to about 90 deg. F. This room is partly under the kitchen area so, last night, I installed a vent in the floor connecting the two spaces. Now warm air flows into the upper area. I consider this a fairly smart move that partially recovers the loss of efficiency I accepted in the choice of boiler.

And just as well...after a record breaking spell of warm weather through the Fall, the forecast for the past three days has been for low temperatures and perhaps 4 - 8 inches accumulation. About an inch of snow eventuated but the temperature fell from just above freezing to 12 deg. F (-11 deg. C) when I was clearing the deck and front paths this morning. As I was so engaged, the sun rose to begin a fine day. I think the threat of heavy snow fall has passed. As I edit this post, at 8 PM, the night temperature is expected to fall to 6 deg. F (about -19 C). I have rejigged the programing so the house will run a little cooler, so it will be snuggle up tight in bed tonight! At least the cold has frozen the muddy backyard.

As I began this post, Richard (one of Daniel's subbies) arrived to complete the dry-wall work. Mid-week, or a little later, this will all be complete and what remains is painting both rooms. I propose initially to complete the upper bedroom, first the painting, then the installation of the floating laminate floor, and finally finishing out the framing of the doors. Then I will be able to move my bed up from the lower level and begin to enjoy this new space. So a week or so of work there.

I have missed my house so much and it is grand to be back. I am especially pleased with the way the winter sun reaches far into these new, enlarged spaces, traversing from one side to the other as the day unfolds. Below the deck, work remains in the sun room. This needs to be insulated and lined, likely to be complete in February. At that stage, Ray will attach the thermostat for the radiant floor and commission that zone. I have a little work to do in the adjoining laundry area, setting up a workbench. Here I plan to make at least some of the furniture for my evolving home. High Ho...its off to work we go!

THE WINTER SOLSTICE

TODAY, 22 DECEMBER, IS THE NORTHERN WINTER SOLSTICE. I would love to be in my little house, checking out the fall of sunlight in the southern rooms, especially the sunroom/potting room beneath the deck. But here I am, after five weeks in Oz, visiting with my daughter and granddaughter in Colorado. I was thinking that three weeks of skiing would be rather nice but, despite it seemingly everywhere else, none to speak of has fallen here.

I have been away too long; I miss my house and wonder will it remember me when I finally return. Really, a lot has happened since my last posting. The deck and sunroom are completed and double French doors now open from the deck into the kitchen area what will be the enlarged upper bedroom. Here is a photo of the sunroom as sent to me by Daniel, my contractor, while I was in Australia.

As you can see, six double glazed surfaces light the sunroom: two windows facing East and three to the South, plus the door. This should let in enough light and heat during the Winter period. I calculate that light will fall over half the floor and the lower half the inner wall at the solstice noon. In addition, the revision of the heating system has included a radiant heat loop under the sunroom floor. Occasionally warm air from the clothes dryer will exhaust into this space as well. My hope is that I will have sufficient control of growing conditions for my seedlings once spring arrives. When I return the task of tiling the floor awaits me. This should be a comfortable room in the colder period. The inner door opens into the laundry area where there is plenty of room there to set up my Winter/Spring workshop.

Above this space runs the extended deck. The sliding patio doors that formerly opened into the breakfast/eating area have been replaced by French doors matching those entering the bedroom, which you can see opposite. Adjustable slat blinds within the double glazing help to regulate light and keep heat inside the house at night. While glass is good at letting heat in it also is quite good a letting it escape as the outside air cools.

We enlarged both the bedroom and the living areas by removing load bearing dividing walls, having first strengthened the roof timbers

After all, this is to be my bachelor's abode; two bedrooms (one in the lower level) are sufficient, as I love space and hate partitions. This makes for more efficient heating and cooling of the house. I will paint these rooms on my return and then emplace floating floors in these areas. Since the utility room is exactly below the kitchen area, a vent/register in the kitchen floor will allow heat to rise from the furnace area and so promote circulation between the two levels of the house, an advantage to staying with older furnace technology when revising the heating system, not to mention saving about three thousand dollars.

Since these photos, the fencing of the deck has been completed. However, you can seen the stairs descending from the deck at the left of the last picture. The outside work and the revision of the heating/hot water system are now complete. I have been very fortunate with both contractors, Daniel and Ray. Now it is essentially up to me. I will keep you posted as the interior work proceeds. By late Spring, the work I have mentioned should be well in hand and I must be thinking of work in the garden. Other than that, I have to ensure that the house is as airtight as possible so I will be looking for leaks as well as fashioning internal insulated shutters for the lower level windows to conserve heat.

The house is well lit, efficiently heated, and insulated so can be expected to function well in all seasons. Being on a slope leading up to the surrounding hill slopes, it is well served by breezes in the warmer weather. The white painted roof has kept internal temperature down during the warm days of last Summer so I am pleased with progress and anxious to see how well things go in the cold weather when I return. So far so good.

Planning the garden area will be important to assisting the house fit well with the environment so I will be thinking of the chi a great deal as I plan the placement of trees and shrubs over the planting, growing seasons that are forthcoming. No doubt this will keep you amused as the project goes on. The overall plan is to have a tidy but commodious home set in an environment that assists it to use the least energy possible and ensure my happy occupation in this the final quarter of my life.